


i come from the small world of new texas

by AssyEr



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Cultural Differences, Gen, Gun Violence, How Do I Tag, Language, Like, is a title really necessary?, the usual, this took way too long to finish, very jonny centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26247580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssyEr/pseuds/AssyEr
Summary: Marius just stood there, laughing as if Jonny had told a joke. “It’s not! I’ve been here for what, a millennia already? And I’ve never heard you like that, all, all…” he made a gesture with his hand, as if to indicate something both of them were aware of.Jonny was not amused. “Spill it out” he spat at him, hand already on his holster.“All, you know,” Marius said. “Cowboy-y?”Or; Jonny realises he lost his accent and forgot how to speak Spanish. It does not make him feel stuff. Still, for unrelated reasons he tries to fix that.
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville & Marius von Raum
Comments: 21
Kudos: 108
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	i come from the small world of new texas

**Author's Note:**

> written for writers month, prompt 25, drop

“The fuck are you on, von Raum, that’s how I always talk!” the first mate told him, eyes full on suspicion on the man’s intention.

Marius just stood there, laughing as if Jonny had told a joke. “It’s not! I’ve been here for what, a millennia already? And I’ve never heard you like that, all, all…” he made a gesture with his hand, as if to indicate something both of them were aware of.

Jonny was not amused. “Spill it out” he spat at him, hand already on his holster.

“All, you know,” Marius said. “Cowboy-y?”

He should have really seen the shoot coming.

When von Raum woke up, he found himself floating in space, tied to the Aurora by an old rope around his right leg. It was not the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last, he knew. Marius sighed, and grabbed the end on his leg to start the slow process of getting near a window and catch somebody who might care about him enough to open the airlock and let him back.

The incident with von Raum stayed on Jonny’s mind.

He… he knew that his accent had dropped since he left New Texas, millennium of space and time traveling tended to do that to you, but. It had never crossed his mind that it had been that bad.

Because it wasn’t. No, von Raum was just some stupid idiot who found himself for once paying attention to what his captain told him, and felt the need to point to everything that caught his eye. Because he was that much of a small kid, and Jonny had definitely been using his Texan accent at various points in the last millennia. Whatever he was trying to claim was obviously fake and did not deserve a second thought.

Except his brain couldn’t help but give it to it. And then a third, and a fourth, until that little thing ended up being on the back of his mind at all times.

Carmilla had “encouraged” him, as she would have put it, to lose his accent, sometime before they got Nastya. But once she had her accident, he had been free to talk as he pleased. He started loud, annoying, and got a lot of shoots because of the forced mannerisms and brute use of Spanish words (which he gave in return), until he settled into something acceptable. Well, acceptable for him. It was probably some sort of monstrous combination of his bad memory and all the movies and stuff where Texan people talked, but still. It was his.

Now, thinking back on his mannerism of speech, he realized that he lost most of it. It wasn’t uncommon, millennium of just hearing people talk in Common tended to smooth your accent. Even Tim’s had dulled a little, tough it was still fairly distinctive from the Common they all used.

He used to speak a lot more of Spanish. Not much, just a word here, a curse there. Most of it he had gotten it from his mother, who often spoke to him in the language to make sure he didn’t lose it. And sometimes, in his mind, when talking to himself, or just unconscious garbage.

When had he stopped?

They were all dinning in the kitchen, and Jonny was sitting still with the toughs lingering around his head, when he noticed.

Nastya still had her accent.

She had joined the crew a hundred years or so after him, a number that at this point seemed ridiculously small. But she still had that pompous way of intoning the words, the closed way of speaking Common of Cyberian people. Nastya cursed in her native language, now and then, frequently enough that the rest of the band had already picked up on it.

And she wasn’t the only one. Tim still had that fucking weird way of talking, that last week only had made Jonny start fire at least four times. Not to mention how much he spent fussing with the Toy Soldier about their shitty tea, or their unholy breakfast (no, the fact that they were one of the few that actually cooked for the rest did not excuse their behaviors).

Ashes, too. Malone was a particularly diverse planet, so it’s not like they had a particular accent, but you could see their origins in the way they walked, chin up and a cadence used to walk on busy streets, always alert of the surroundings. Malone had died incinerated, but they still carried it on them, and left a little of it in every place the mechs landed on.

Ivy might not remember shit about where she had come from, but it seemed like her home hadn’t left her completely. She moved smoothly and careful, almost as if she wasn’t even touching the ground, and every time she entered a room she took of her shoes. Those details were definitely not enough to track down a planet, not even a system, but it was a small thing to warm her heart.

With Brian things have been more… complicated. With his memory going funky the first years of his new life, and having no flesh that could held any residual memory like Ivy’s, he hadn’t really have anything like that until Carmilla went out the airlock and the mechanisms managed to track down the place he had been thrown from. He had only been there for a week, before they discovered him and tried to kill him once more, but apparently it had been enough for the drumbot to pick some traits back.

He walked different when he came back to the ship, with feet stomping their way through the corridor. He hadn’t picked up any accent (thank god, thought Jonny), but now and then he added some weird word in a language the rest didn’t recognize, and if Jonny were a lesser man, it would have made him feel melancholic.

Raphaella carried her home planet in her back, in the way she dressed, in how she chirped when happy. She didn’t enjoy talking about the place, but neither did she do anything to get rid of those trinkets.

Unlike Marius, who took on every single tradition he could get his hands on, never staying with one for too long. He also lied every time he was asked about where he came from, much to Ivy’s annoyance. It was infuriating to see how much he could just, gain a new identity, like that, without looking back.

And then there was him. Jonny d’Ville, who could spent years and years with someone, and apparently not use his own accent.

If it was still his.

Because that was the thing, wasn’t it? Even if his crewmates didn’t remember shit about the place they have been born on, they still had something.

“Jonny d’Ville, tu humilde capitán,” he said to the mirror.

_Su humilde capitán_ , he corrected himself. If he was going to present to a crowd, he should use _su_. It was like being in class once again, when they made them all say some stupid rhyme to learn to pronounce shit. Jonny hated those rhymes.

After a week of his brain not leaving him alone, he decided to take matters on hands. It’s not like it had been that long since he spoke Spanish, he was just being a dramatic bitch as usual. And to prove the point, he locked himself in his bedroom and started to introduce the crew in the language.

It was not going good, to be entirely honest. He did definitely not forget how to translate certain words, it was just that he ended up wanting more breaks than he had expected. But he would be damn if he didn’t take them whenever the fuck he wanted, even if that meant spending a whole day standing in front of a mirror to say something that would normally take him no more than fifteen minutes.

Jonny d’Ville did as he pleased, thank you very much.

“¿Qué mierda estás haciendo?”

Jonny practically felt his ghost leave his body as he jumped, not from the scare, of fucking course not, but from how ugly Marius looked from the door. He was leaning on it with an expression of amusement that did not fit the horrible death he was about to experiment.

_Who the fuck had let him in?_

“Nada,” Jonny told him through his teeth, once he recovered. “The fuck you want.”

The asshole raised his hands, as if guessing the first mate’s intentions (which wasn’t really difficult, it was harder for Jonny to have a different intention than shooting, actually. Even Marius understood that). He refrained himself from entering, just standing halfway in, and how had he managed to open the door? It was locked?

“And how do you know Spanish?” he asked after a long moment of indecision.

“Oh, you know, went here and there,” von Raum said, giving the most useless and pompous response even Jonny couldn’t believe he would dare to speak. He was already going for his holster when he heard him add, “I can help you practice, if you want”

For some mysterious reason, Jonny’s gun did not have any bullet left, so Marius was still standing up after he pulled the trigger on him, repeatedly. After shouting in anger, he just threw the useless weapon at him, hitting his face, much to his satisfaction.

“Ow” Marius said, covering his nose with his hands.

With his annoyance vaguely satisfied, he took a moment to think while watching him fumble with his now bloody face.

He was not asking _Marius_ for help. No way on hell he was going to. Jonny was not that desperate (he was), and he didn’t care all that much (he did. He really did). And he surely wanted something in exchange, something he had come here to look for in the first place. No, thank you.

Jonny shouldn’t even consider it. He shouldn’t ask.

“What do you want in exchange?” he mumbled.

Von Raum seemed surprised by his question, and barely stopped himself of asking what. There was no way the man was going to repeat himself, and it would probably end up with him dead. And so, for once in his life, Marius von Raum thought before speaking.

“Why do you want to learn Spanish?” he asked.

Jonny was already turning around to look for something to use as a weapon. “I don’t know why I bother”

“I mean it!” Marius hurried to step inside and in between the first mate and some trunk that seemed suspiciously dangerous, by how Jonny looked at it. “I will help you, you just have to answer the question”

What part of the interaction, exactly, had made him think that he was in the mood for some stupid psychoanalysis, Jonny wanted to know. “I am _not_ in the mood for your stupid games, von Raum” he practically growled at him, all the while discretely looking for a bullet or some other thing that he could use to shut him up for good.

Marius, all the while, was oblivious to this. “Just, two minutes. Two minutes, and then you get unspecified in duration Spanish help,” he said, eyes wide trying to catch his reaction.

That stopped Jonny’s mind for a moment, making him think. Two minutes. He could deal with that, he supposed. How annoying could he really get in that short span of time?

He was already regretting it when he answered. “Two minutes,” he remarked before starting for real, and waited for a verbal confirmation before speaking. “I used to speak Spanish. I don’t anymore. I want to pick it back. Like Nastya, and Brian, and the rest” Jonny hadn’t mean to say that last part, but it slipped.

Oh well, it was already done.

Marius’ eyes seamed to glow, instead, mind suddenly occupied with making connections and trying to get every inch of information possible from those four sentences. “Does this have to do with the last kitchen incident?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Don’t push it,” Jonny said, unamused. He had signed to give a brief explanation, not to get _therapy_.

Oh, god. Dios. Jesucristo, he thought to himself as he saw Marius bit his lip, deep in thought, and open his mouth to speak.

“You know Jonny, people change, and even more when they are immortal,” a minute and fifteen seconds, that’s how much Jonny had to endure him. He could do that. “They shed part of themselves, and is not wrong to leave the bad ones behind” was he implying that Spanish was a shitty language? As soon as those seconds ended…

“I’m not saying that it is bad!” he hurried to say, hands up, at seeing the first mate’s expression. “Is just that, I always thought you hated that place. New Texas. You talk as if you did, at least.”

Jonny lifted his chin and crossed his arms, in a defensive pose “It’s not that bad,” he lied. The place was complete garbage, and there was almost nothing salvable, as anyone who went there could say.

That didn’t make it less his.

“Mine was,” von Raum decided to offer in exchange, to at least make it seem as if it was a conversation. “That’s why I got rid of the parts of me that reminded me of home.”

The first mate hummed and signaled at the clock in the room, to remind him that he wouldn’t give him more time that the one they agreed on.

Marius continued. “But I… I know about Carmilla, that she wanted to mold you all as she pleased, to say the least.” Yes, he wasn’t getting out of the room alive. Better to make the best of his time, then. “And if this is another thing she stole from you, and you want it back… then I am proud of you for trying to get it back.”

Since he mentioned the doc, Jonny had made an even greater effort to not listen to what that smug bastard was saying. So, when he paused, he didn’t have anything better to say but a _‘Are you done now?’_

The fake baron was, of course, already expecting that. “No.” He was going to get so many new holes for this, he already knew. “I want to add that you have no obligation to be who you were, to yourself or anybody. But if you still want you, I’ll be honored to help.”

They both looked at each other in silence. Marius really wanted to help his friend. He had mentioned the rest of the crew, when saying why he wanted to relearn the language. Did he felt pressured to do so? Maybe he should have said something more about himself leaving his culture behind, creating a new one with the parts that pleased him.

He still wasn’t speaking or reacting. Could he had just worsen the damage? He had been the one to apparently start this whole thing with Spanish, apparently, perhaps he helping was not the best-

The two minutes passed, and, faster than Marius had ever seen him, Jonny got a bullet into the chamber of his gun and killed him before he could realize what was happening.

Finally, thought the first mate as the limp body of his friend fell to the floor. He just couldn’t stand his voice or that weird look he ended up giving him anymore. Marius was annoying as fuck, and the only reason he didn’t throw him into the nearest star was because he wanted to reap his part of the deal. It had been hard to suppress the need to kill him and shut his brain down for so long, and that wouldn’t go in vain.

He grabbed an arm, and dragged the corpse to the corridor, kicking it for good measure and going back to his room, closing the door behind. Then, thinking better of it, he went towards Tim’s armory to look for some ammunition and other fun things. He refused to let the situation repeat again.

A few practices and music rehearsals later, and Jonny d’Ville was singing One Eyed Jack’ in a nameless bar of some fucked up star system.

When he had showed up to the room with a song fully made and composed, no one was surprised. Nor made any comment, for Jonny’s relief, who had had his gun ready in the other hand, and eyes settled threatening on Marius in case he dared make any comment.

He would never, ever admit to have listened any of the bullshit Marius had said to him that day. Because he hadn’t. It had been his brain that had repeated that stuff to him, over and over and over again until he had had no option but to listen. And then kept at it, until he did something about it.

That something had been two things. For one, to try to pick up Spanish again. And he was fucking good at it. He still got some verbs wrong, but he was a fast learner, and, just maybe, in some remote way, practicing with von Raum might have been good for it. Perhaps. There was no way of proving it.

The second thing had been music, to the surprise of no one. Not that anyone but himself knew, but still. It had been expected. It had been the first time apart from some random mention that he talked about his home, and he wouldn’t say for anything in the world that it had been therapeutic but… he felt a bit better than before. Regrettably.

Von Raum was to never know about that however, or that anything he had said had lingered for more than those two minutes, or that he had even listened to him in the first place.

So Jonny had written about his home. Whether as a goodbye or a way of remember he wasn’t sure just yet, but he had fun singing it, and that annoyed feeling on his chest had gone almost completely. For all the rest, he had eternity and a chamber full of bullets to deal with it.

**Author's Note:**

> The reason why Jonny's gun had no bullets was that i needed Marius to be alive for a little longer
> 
> Also, this took way too long to finish
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you feel like it, Kudos and Comments feel like when you wake up in the middle of the night, wanting something sweet because of reasons, and you find out of nowhere a nice candy that you had forgetten had. Sweet, delicious surprise.


End file.
